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In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that nonunanimous juries violate the U.S. Constitution and overturned the conviction of a Louisiana man convicted of murder.

The ruling will have a massive impact in Oregon, the only state to allow nonunanimous jury verdicts after Louisiana voters struck down its nonunanimous jury system in 2018.

Split verdicts of 10-to-2 and 11-to-1 are allowed in Oregon on all felony cases except for murder and aggravated murder.

Prosecutors said they are reviewing the opinion for its immediate impact on Oregon’s pending and closed criminal cases.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who previously filed a brief saying a ruling finding nonunanimous juries unconstitutional would invalidate hundreds of convictions in the state, said they expected this ruling and are working to address its "significant consequences" for Oregon's justice system.

“This is good news!" Rosenblum said in a statement. "It is an embarrassment to our otherwise progressive state that we are the only state in the country with a law in our Constitution that allows criminal convictions without juror unanimity."

Rosenblum did not respond to request for comment on what specific cases — recent or long-convicted — Monday's ruling would impact.

U.S. Supreme Court(Photo: Getty Images)

Those who have long-fought against the system have declared the ruling a victory.

“After 85 years, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Ramos v. Louisiana today has finally ended an unjust rule with a shameful past in Oregon," said Professor Aliza Kaplan, director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School and a longtime critic of nonunanimous juries.

Now, Oregon can join the rest of the country in requiring unanimous juries in all criminal cases, ensuring a more fair trial for all those accused of crimes and making sure all voices of jurors are heard, she said.

A racist origin?

A widespread push emerged during the 2019 Oregon Legislature to take the issue of nonunanimous juries to voters.

Opponents of the system said it leads to racism, wrongful convictions and serious miscarriages of justice. Even sides who typically oppose each other — prosecutors, defense attorneys and activists — were united against the nonunanimous jury system.

"The nonunanimous jury rule not only had its origins in racism and anti-Semitism, but it perpetuated discrimination into the present day," Kaplan said.

But momentum to bring the issue to voters fizzled and the resolution died in committee.

"The timing was such that our legislature dropped its plan to refer the question of jury unanimity to Oregon voters," Rosenblum, who supported the move to change to nonunanimous jury law, said. "Instead, the Supreme Court has put Oregon in the spotlight for a law we never should have been adopted in the first place, but which has been followed here for 85 years."

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum(Photo: Don Ryan, AP file)

In the opinion delivered to the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch underscored the racist roots of nonunanimous jury verdicts.

"Why do Louisiana and Oregon allow nonunanimous convictions?" Gorsuch said in the opinion. "Though it’s hard to say why these laws persist, their origins are clear."

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He recounted the Jim Crow-era trappings of Lousiana's nonunanimous jury law and the racist background of Oregon's law.

"Adopted in the 1930s, Oregon’s rule permitting nonunanimous verdicts can be similarly traced to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and efforts to dilute 'the influence of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities on Oregon juries'," he said.

Bobbin Singh, executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, said the fact that Oregon was the last state to allow a practice so steeped in racism is very symbolic of the racial inequities in the state's criminal justice system — from the death penalty to mandatory minimums to policing.

"Oregon has to be more honest about these policies and the origins of these policies and really be willing to confront white supremacy and racism and how it plays out," Singh said.

His biggest question: What did it take until 2020 and the U.S. Supreme Court for Oregon to rid itself of this policy?

A Salem case goes to SCOTUS

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision was a sea change from their previous actions on the issue, particularly from the 48-year-old Apodaca v. Oregon ruling involving a Salem man.

Apodaca refers to Robert Apodaca and two other Oregon men convicted of felonies whose cases went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.

Apodaca, then 23, was convicted by a split Marion County jury in 1968 of assault with a dangerous weapon and sentenced to five years in prison. According to newspaper archives, Apodaca cut a man's neck with a knife during a fight on State Street earlier that year.

It took the jury less than 10 minutes to convict Apodaca.

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A clip from Robert Apodaca's 1968 conviction in Salem.(Photo: Statesman Journal archives)

But Apodaca and two other Oregon men appealed their convictions. After the Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed their convictions and the Oregon Supreme Court denied review, the men took their cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the nonunanimous juries that convicted them violated their constitutional rights.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the constitutional right to a trial by jury was not violated by a nonunanimous verdict in state court.

Since the 1972 ruling, Oregon has continued to allow nonunanimous jury convictions in manslaughter, sex abuse, attempted murder and rape cases.

In the strongly-worded opinion released Monday, Gorsuch called the Apodaca ruling a "badly fractured set of opinions" and said the court was "gravely mistaken."

He said it was up to the court to correct that mistake and uphold the Sixth Amendment.

'Where is the justice in that?'

In the case at hand, Ramos v. Louisiana, Evangelisto Ramos, an oil rig worker, was convicted by a nonunanimous jury of stabbing a woman to death in 2014 and stuffing her body in a garbage can. After the jury convicted him in a 10-2 split, Ramos was sentenced to life in prison.

Ramos appealed his conviction in Lousiana to no avail, but in March, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of his nonunanimous conviction.

Last year, Rosenblum submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court saying a ruling that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimity on state prosecutions could "invalidate convictions in hundreds if not thousands of cases," in Oregon and Louisiana.

Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and, in part, by Justice Elena Kagan.

Gorsuch said the best the dissent can muster against Ramos is they shouldn't acknowledge the truth about how the Sixth Amendment applies to his case because they might have to acknowledge that same truth in other cases.

"But where is the justice in that?" Gorsuch asked.

He continued:

"Every judge must learn to live with the fact he or she will make some mistakes; it comes with the territory.

But it is something else entirely to perpetuate something we all know to be wrong only because we fear the consequences of being right."

Advocates heartened by ruling

Ben Cohen, Ramos's attorney, said he was heartened by the ruling and the court's rejection of the concept of "second-class justice."

"In light of the COVID-19 crisis, it is essential that prisoners who are wrongfully incarcerated be given the chance for release as soon as possible," he said.

"Unfortunately, the legislative referral did not pass during the 2019 legislative session, which would have allowed Oregon voters to decide this issue, without the uncertainty of retroactivity," the association's statement said.

Prosecutors acknowledged that a change to unanimous verdicts could make criminal convictions more difficult.

"However, it is a hallmark of our justice system that it should be difficult to take someone’s liberty," ODAA officials said. "This is evidenced by the fact that in criminal cases a defendant is presumed innocent and the state prosecutor must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

Adding the requirement of unanimity is an important safeguard, they said.

Singh said the ruling was a "big step in the right direction" and he hopes those convicted by split juries will have their cases retried.

Kaplan said that Oregon, like Louisiana, has never tracked the number of people convicted by nonunanimous juries.

The Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School is available to assist those with nonunanimous jury convictions who remain in custody along with those no longer incarcerated who wish to revisit their convictions.

"We look forward to providing information and assistance on this important change in the law that will move Oregon forward," she said.

Brittney Plesser, senior staff attorney for the Oregon Innocence Project, said many wrongful convictions in the state have resulted from trials with nonunanimous juries.

She pointed to two Oregon Innocence Project clients, Josh Horner and Nick McGuffin, who respectively served eighteen months and 10 years in prison before having their convictions overturned. She also highlighted the case of Brad Holbrook, who spent more than six years in prison before his conviction was overturned.

All three were convicted by split juries.

"It has long been a concern of ours that nonunanimity increases the risk of innocent Oregonians being wrongfully convicted," Plesser said. "Research on how juries deliberate and reach a final decision shows nonunanimous juries can mean less thorough analysis of the facts by jurors, less deliberation, and reaching quicker and more incorrect verdicts."

Rosenblum said officials can now move forward with removing the law from the state constitution and address the "many" cases that require review as result of the Supreme Court's decision.

"We have been working closely for months with our appellate courts and with the leadership of the criminal defense bar to plan our case review and the judicial process that will ensue," she said. "We will also need to be in contact with the many crime victims and their families who are impacted by this decision."

Todd Sprague, spokesman with the Oregon Judicial Department, said they are working with the state Department of Justice and public defenders to identify cases where both parties agree an Oregon conviction on appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court or Court of Appeals should be reversed and the case returned to the trial court for possible retrial.

The judicial department is also working to find other appellate issues that may need to be resolved before appellate courts can determine whether reversal is warranted.

"The Oregon appellate courts are not expected to issue decisions on those matters for several weeks," he said. "It then will take many months to brief, argue, and decide the cases in which further appellate review is necessary."

The Oregon Supreme Court is currently holding 74 petitions for review in criminal appeal cases that might be affected by Ramos.

"There are expected to be more, but they are not yet identified," Sprague said. "The number of affected cases in the Court of Appeals is less clear, but that court currently has more than 2,900 criminal appeals pending at various stages of case processing."